Xiaolin Peanuts
by Noritsu
Summary: Omi swipes Rai's kite after promising that he wouldn't. There's a little, yellow bird and a discussion of kite-eating trees and -- Good Grief! -- Just go ahead and read it! Oneshot.


**Xiaolin Showdown**

**Xiaolin Peanuts**

Authoress: Noritsu

Disclaimer

I **do not** own the Xiaolin Showdown characters, or the Xiaolin Showdown universe.  
They are copyrighted and belong to Christie Hui and Warner Brothers.  
The storyline, however, is mine. So no pilfering, please. Thanks.

**TUN*** Publishing Company

August 30, 2009

***T**he**U**sual**N**onsense

**Xiaolin Peanuts**

No sooner had he pulled it out of the box then Omi was there, at his side, pestering him with all manner of comments and questions.

"Ooooh, it is a kite!" he began. "Who sent it to you? I have never had a kite. Does it really fly? I bet **I **could get it up very high in the air. Are you going to use it in some secret elaborate plan against Jack? Master Fung doesn't know about this, does he?"

"Omi, will you _please_ be quiet!" he said, as he continued to concentrate on undoing the packaging that the kite was wrapped in. Honestly, his mom was the queen of wrapped packaging. The box could have come flying apart during the journey from Brazil to China, but the kite would have arrived, safely, and intact, what with all this plastic. He envisioned himself indulging in a lengthy bubble plastic snapping session later this evening to sooth his worn nerves from dealing with questions from all his teammates and then putting the kite together.

"Clay and Kimiko have not come yet. I wonder where they are?" the little monk wondered out loud. "Ooh, ooh, I will go and retrieve them from wherever they may be. They must come and see this!"

Raimundo let out an audible sigh, which was unfortunate, because it gave Omi a few seconds head start to scamper off and get away from him before he could stop him.

"Omi! ….. Wait....."

His voice trailed off into the air. Omi's feet were disappearing around the corner of the building and were gone.

_Crap_

He finally got the last piece of tape pulled off and freed the kite from its bondage. He laid it very carefully on the ground and set about working on digging out the remaining padding in the box to find the string, the frame and the instructions. It would probably take him the better part of the afternoon to assemble it.

In fact, he had spoken to Master Fung about this, and even Master Guan. They both agreed that it might prove to be an invaluable training tool to help him master the power of the wind. Sure, he could whip up a windstorm in no time flat. But there was something to be said for also being able to master the subtler shifts of the air, like in a breeze for instance. The kite seemed like the perfect way to help him gain that sort of finer control over the air currents. After all, you couldn't exactly fly a kite in a windstorm now could you?

"Oh, my gosh, is that a hanglider?" a female voice asked.

It sure looked like a hanglider, albeit a much smaller version. Rai had unrolled the material so he could see how big it was. Over eight feet! It had a blue background with a white bird, outlined in black, spread across the length of it. The bird had elaborate plumage that spilled onto the upper and lower portions of the kite from its crest and tail.

Raimundo grabbed the bottom of the kite and snatched it away from Kimiko's descending hands. He stood up and turned very carefully around and laid it on the ground behind him.

"Look," he began, eyeing Kimiko's disapproving frown rather warily, "I'm not trying to be rude or nasty or anything. But this is a training tool. It's not a toy. This thing cost over two hundred American dollars! Do you know how much that would be in Chinese money? And yes, Master Fung, _and_ Master Guan thought it would be a good idea for me to get this. So please, I really need all of you to promise you will not touch this thing. I can't have it getting torn or anything because you _think_ you could be just as good as me at controlling it in the air."

His gaze shifted to Omi. "And that goes double for you, young man," he said, pointing his finger directly at Omi's nose. "So, please, can you promise?" he continued, giving them his best imploring look.

Clay and Kimiko rolled their eyes. "Fine, we promise."

Omi raised his right hand and said. "I swear to you that these fingers will never come in contact with your kite."

"That's nice, Omi," Rai replied. "What about the fingers on your left hand?"

"Those either."

"Thanks. I really appreciate it, guys. And now, if you don't mind, I need some quality alone time to start putting this thing together."

"As you wish," Omi said obediently. With a flourish, he bowed and then turned and walked away.

Rai eyed him suspiciously as he left.

"You know the first chance he gets, he's gonna swipe that from you," Clay said.

Rai nodded slowly, a look of resignation on his face. "Yeah, I know."

xxx

In hindsight, he should have known that his little caper would come to such an ending as this.

Or perhaps, not _exactly_ an ending quite like this, but still, an ending equally unpleasant.

On the other hand, he couldn't, at the moment, think of an ending that was nearly as unpleasant as dangling upside down in a tree, with a kite string wrapped around his legs cutting off his circulation.

He began shouting as loud as he could in order to alert someone -- anyone -- that he was in trouble.

"**Clay! Kimiko!** _**Pleeeeeease**_** come and help me! I am stuck in a tree!**"

Nothing.

"**Dojo! Master Fung!**"

A nice breeze suddenly erupted in the area, carrying the scent of wildflowers with it as it wafted along. There was no way he was going to yell for Raimundo to come get him. He was in enough trouble as it was. Raimundo would probably punish him within an inch of his life when he got ahold of him.

He sighed, seeing as how there really wasn't much else he could do at the moment. Sure, he could summon up one of his water attacks and hack the string, and the kite, and the tree to pieces to free himself. That would probably get him a double punishment, from both Raimundo _and_ Master Fung.

"**Clay! Kimiko! Dojo!**" he shouted again.

His mind wandered back to the beginning of his little escapade.

It was Raimundo's turn to cook supper, which meant that Rai would be preoccupied for at least a good hour in the kitchen. The time he had spent skulking and sneaking around over the past two days had paid off in finally revealing to him the location of Rai's hidden kite. It angered him slightly that Rai didn't trust him enough that he felt he had to hide it. Of course, if Rai _had_ trusted him and had simply placed it somewhere in his room, it would have made it easier for him to swipe it.

There was something about the course of logic regarding his train of thought that didn't seem quite right to him, but he couldn't put his finger on it, so he let it slide and plunged ahead in his reverie.

He watched Rai go into the kitchen after putting the kite away. Since he had already finished up his last training session of the day, and his chores to boot, he was all ready to go when Rai's feet hit the inside of the building. He'd made a beeline for Rai's hiding place, snatched the kite, high-tailed it out the back door and jumped over the temple wall. From there, he ran the whole way around to the front and up the long path to the hill in front of the temple complex.

The hill flattened out, and there were trees up here, and some large boulders, so he was certain that no one would see him. At least, no one would see him right away. And so, he'd figured, he would have at least a good forty minutes left to see if he could get Rai's kite up in the air and play with it.

He let out the string and ran forward as fast as he could with the kite trailing behind him. He yanked the string upwards now and then to try and coax the kite to gain altitude. He was certain he was doing exactly as he had seen Raimundo do. But then, from seemingly out of nowhere, a sudden updraft of air came along. A fierce gust of wind just blew up all of a sudden and then the tree was bending over and the branches seemed to grab at him. The next thing he knew, he was being pulled off the ground and he was spinning and the kite string wound itself around his legs.

And just like that, as suddenly as the gust had blown up, it died down just as suddenly and now here he was just hanging around and swaying in the breeze.

Oh, the irony.

The sound of approaching voices snapped him from his thoughts and he strained his ears. Was that Kimiko he heard talking? It was! Joy!

"Kimiko! I am over here!" he shouted.

He grabbed a branch and managed to pull himself into a sort of horizontal position. Kimiko was coming over the top of the hill and Clay was with her. He began waving his arms wildly, as if the shouting hadn't somehow been enough to garner their attention. Unfortunately, the moment he left go of the limb, he dropped down and swung over a bit. Then he swung back. Then he swung away again.

"Hey!" Kimiko exclaimed as she got closer to Omi, "This reminds me of that scene in that movie I was watching the other day!"

"Um, Kimiko?"

"See, they trapped Diana in the temple," Kimiko began.

"Uh….Kimiko?"

"And the bad guys were chasing her through all the narrow corridors."

"Kimiko, please?"

"And they came to this chamber where there weren't any other exits."

"_Kimiko!_"

"And they backed her into the chamber."

"_Kimiko, please get me down from here!_"

"And then they pushed this brick into the wall and this big pendulum comes swinging down from the ceiling! And it starts swinging back and forth like this – "

Kimiko put her hands against Omi's side and gave him a good push. He started swinging. Back and forth. Back and forth.

"_Kimiko, are you not listening to my pained pleas for help??_"

Kimiko waved her hand dismissively at Omi. "Yes, yes Omi," she said in a voice that was just a little too cheery, he thought. "Rai's gonna come get you down himself. He only wanted us to come and find out where you were. Remember! He doesn't want anyone touching his kite!"

Omi watched in horror as Kimiko and Clay walked away from him, back down the hill to the temple.

Back and forth he swung.

_I am so dead……._

xxx

The door banging shut, rather violently, was the only indication of just how angry Rai was feeling at the moment. His face was a carefully controlled mask as he walked, in deliberately paced strides, across the temple grounds to the front path that would lead him to the hill where Omi was.

He passed Dojo, who was perched in a tree, with his supper bowl placed at a rakish sort of angle over his head. He was talking to a strange looking, little, yellow bird that Rai couldn't recall having ever seen before. Temporarily losing his grip on his anger, he altered his path so he would walk near the tree the two were in.

The bird certainly was an odd little thing. It looked like it might have been the runt of the nest. Its head feathers were all askew like it had slept on its head and then couldn't quite comb the feathers back in place. It seemed to be terribly engrossed in what Dojo was saying. He heard a passing snippet of the one way conversation as he walked by.

"….and I stayed at their house for a few days," Dojo was saying. "They were a really nice couple. But their son was a bit odd, I thought. He had this kid-sized baby grand piano that he played all the time. He was like a classical music nut or something. He had a statue of Beethoven…..or maybe it was Mozart…..heck, I don't know. Anyway, it sat on top of his little kid-sized piano….."

At this point Rai lost the conversation, and he trudged on, shaking his head. Where had Dojo made friends with this little bird, he wondered? And when? He decided to talk to Master Fung about it when he got back from freeing Omi. Maybe the little bird was just an old friend on a layover to wherever it was headed and it happened to run into Dojo this time around.

At the top of the hill, he quickened his pace. The blood was probably laying it on thick in Omi's head right now and he really didn't want the little monk to suffer any negative side affects from his time in the tree. No, he wasn't quite _that _angry.

The scant two days worth of training that he had gotten in with the kite was enough for him to already show off the sense of fine-tuning he was beginning to pick up. He got Omi and the kite – string and all – disentangled, and down from the tree without any further injury to either party.

Omi did his best to look contrite as Raimundo rolled the string back up.

"I am very sorry I took your kite."

"And you should be."

"Yes. I know. I don't know what to say except I'm sorry."

"I explained to you how important this kite was to my training. I told you that Master Fung and Master Guan were even in on the idea of it. That still wasn't enough to sway you from taking it."

"And if I hadn't taken it, it would not have gotten tangled up in the tree and been in danger of becoming damaged."

Raimundo said nothing, only began chewing on the bottom of his lip.

Omi shuffled his feet. Maybe he could reduce his punishment if he deflected some of the blame onto the tree. After all, if that wind hadn't come up, and if the tree hadn't attacked him, he would have returned to the temple with the kite none the worse for wear, and he would only be in trouble for taking it instead of being in trouble for taking it, _and_ damaging it.

He cleared his throat and recited the whole story making sure he used an apologetic tone during the part where he took the kite and ran off with it, and a distressed tone for the part where he got snatched up by the tree.

By the time he was finished Rai looked as though he was trying desperately to keep from laughing.

Omi felt indignation well up within him. "It is true!" he exclaimed. "The tree attacked me! And I did not provoke it!"

"Omi, you are only in trouble for plotting to take the kite, and actually taking the kite and running off with it. You are not in trouble for getting either yourself, or the kite, tangled in the tree." He grinned suddenly. "I _knew_ you were going to swipe my kite, Omi. I waited until you got to the top of the hill and then I came after you. _I_ whipped up the wind, _I_ bent the tree branches and snatched you up and got you tangled."

Omi's eyes were the size of saucers. "You tricked me!"

"That statement coming from you after you stood down there and lied to my face will not gain you any sympathy from me."

Omi frowned. "Wait. Clay and Kimiko acted like – "

"Clay and Kimiko acted the way I asked them to act," Rai said, cutting Omi off. "Am I sorry?" He stopped rolling and looked at Omi. "Only partially. _Very _partially. Let me tell you something, little buddy. The next time you swipe my kite, I'm going to tangle you up again. And the next time I'm gonna leave you dangling for a lot longer than I did this time."

Omi said nothing more and Rai finished rolling the string. He gingerly picked up the kite and gave it the once over. It didn't seem to have suffered any tears that he could see. He would have to examine it more closely when they got back to the temple. He motioned with his hand and the air started swirling gently, lifting the kite aloft slightly.

"Alright," he said, "let's go. Supper's done and I'm starving. Clay and Kimiko are the only ones who've gotten to eat anything. I hope they left some for us."

xxx

"Honestly, Clay, there is no such thing as a kite-eating tree."

"But you can't be sure," Clay retorted. "There's a lot o' mighty fine unexplained things that go on in this world. There _could_ be a kite-eatin' tree. It's just a matter o' finding out where one might be."

"And I bet you believe in ghosts, too," Rai said.

"_You_ control the wind. _I_ control the earth. _She_ controls fire. Omi, water. Explain _that_, mister."

"Clay – "

"He's gotcha there, Rai," Kimiko said, grinning.

"And then there's Heylin magic, and Xiaolin magic," Clay continued.

"Okay, okay, fine, geez," Rai said waving his hand as if to shoo the subject away. His expression turned thoughtful. "Listen, have you guys ever seen a little, yellow bird that Dojo talks to? It was up in the tree earlier and Dojo was having a whole one-sided conversation with it – " He cut himself off abruptly as he noticed to look on Clay's face.

"Don't say it!" he exclaimed.

"It was – "Clay began.

"No!" Rai yelled.

"Woodstock!" Clay finished triumphantly.

"_Clay!_" Rai shouted, laughing. He punched Clay playfully in the arm.

But Clay's mind had suddenly veered away from the conversation on an entirely different tangent. The mention of Dojo and the little bird, and the discussion about whether or not there may be kite-eating trees, prompted an unbidden image to form in his mind.

_Dojo is perched on top of the Wu vault. He holds himself straight with his fist raised in a gesture of defiance. Down at the bottom of the vault Clay stands also, eyeing the little green dragon. He wonders how Dojo will react. But they need to rehearse so Dojo will be ready when the time comes. Clay takes a deep breath. _"**Here come the bulldozers!**"_ he yells. Dojo shrieks in terror, flings himself off the vault roof and scampers inside one of the buildings to hide. Later, when Clay finds him, he says, "That wasn't exactly the reaction I was looking for." _

Clay shook the daydream away and pushed Rai's snapping fingers out of his face.

"Hey, where'd you go?" Rai asked.

Clay chuckled. "All this talk of Peanuts characters and plotlines is startin' to get to me."

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but it is getting late, and we're all probably getting tired," Kimiko said. "I think it's time to hit the hay."

Omi, who had remained studiously silent during the entire length of the discussion, decided it was time to ask a question now that things were going to be wrapped up.

"What are Peanuts characters?" he asked, quite innocently. "I have never heard of such a thing. And kite-eating trees and this Woodstock creature that Dojo was speaking to."

"Oh, c'mon," Clay said. "You never heard o' Peanuts?"

"It's a comic strip, Omi," Kimiko answered.

"What is a comic strip?"

"Oh, Good Grief, Omi!" Rai exclaimed. His outburst sent the other two into fits of laughter while Omi remained, thoroughly bewildered, in the midst of it all.

Rai sighed. He put his hand on Omi's shoulder and steered him in the direction of the temple. "C'mon, Omi. Let's get some sleep. We'll explain all this to you in the morning."

They set off in the direction of the building that served as their living quarters, talking all the while. Behind them, they did not see the little, yellow bird as it flew past them, and smacked into a low hanging branch on the cherry tree. It flittered, and fluttered, and made a vain attempt to right itself. Finally giving up, it flew off, upside down, over the temple wall and continued on its way.

finis

* * *

For those of you who are not ardent Peanuts fans and don't understand the bulldozer reference. If I recall correctly, the state wanted to build a road through Charlie Brown's back yard which would have demolished Snoopy's doghouse. Linus was the one who practiced with Snoopy in trying to present a defiant dog who would not allow his house to be crushed.

Methinks this is my favorite one-shot XS fic that I have written so far to date. It combines my undying love of all things Peanuts with my love for XS. I really hope you enjoyed it, too.

Nori


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